Only one in 10 feel leaving the EU has helped their finances, while just 9% say it has benefited the NHS, despite £350m a week pledge according to new poll
A clear majority of the British public now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU single market and customs union.
The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has benefited them or the country.
Just one in 10 believe leaving the EU has helped their personal financial situation, against 35% who say it has been bad for their finances, while just 9% say it has been good for the NHS, against 47% who say it has had a negative effect.
I genuinely asking for some education on Brexit, because I personally thought, and still think it was a terrible decision for the nation, but I am hoping to get a better understanding from real people and not just read articles. I know I can research it, but would like to hear personal opinions/thoughts/etc….
I am a UK citizen, but I was living my teen and mid adult life in Australia. I didn’t get to vote on Brexit as I was not residing on the country at the time, and never thought I would return. Circumstances have changed, and I have now moved back to the UK at the beginning of the year, so I’m in the thick of the Brexit mess now. I can’t comment on what life was like before Brexit, but I am now a citizen of its consequences.
From my limited understanding, and what I really need clarification and advice on is;
Brexit was a campaign point that David Cameron ran on for election. When he won, he called the referendum, but he was opposed to it. Meanwhile, the Brexit campaign was in full swing with lots of misinformation, but Cameron only decided to rally hard in the leading three months up to the vote, failing to properly educate and explain the deal to the public.
The vote was close. Somewhere in the 52%/48%
Cameron stood down
Brexit happened, finalising at the end of 2020
I know there’s a lot of nuance, and I know I’m missing a lot of major information, but is my understanding the very basic gist of what happened?
Thanks for any response
From a continental EU country, I can tell you that Brexit was a shitshow from beginning to the end. The Leave campaign was clearly helped by the same Russian bots that helped Trump get the US presidency. Then, May added confusion to the shock and frustration. People kept saying lies, like it is possible to keep the common market benefits while cherry picking which regulation to follow. Then came Johnson and his lunatic demands, like creating an independent judicial body that would rule any future disagreement on the deal between UK and the EU. Then the constant whining and bullying about fisheries and goods transportation. The UK had been a beacon of hope, heart and decency for the whole 20st Century. Brexit has made it a sinister clown in Europe.
Thank you for comment. These points you mention really illustrate the absolute clusterfuck it has become.
Annoyingly, I believe in democracy and can’t get angry that it happened. It went to the people. The people voted. But damn it was a joke from the beginning, full of lies and deception. Sadly the UK citizens are suffering from this, but hopefully things get better sooner. I’ll always be the eternal optimist.
Good for you mate!
Calm down with the good old times, India gained its independence in 1947.
With a bloody war after the Brits left. Meanwhile, most countries had a go at dictatorship (Italy and Germany of course but also Spain, Greece, the Vichy régime in France,…), East Europe was under Soviet rule, France had a colonial war in Indochina, another in Algeria…
Brits and any other colonial power who randomly cut land according to their greed have huge responsibility in wars following decolonization.
Absolutely. Colonization in Asia and Africa occurred mainly in the 19th Century though. Look, I am not trying to say that the UK was a country full of angels doing God’s work. I am pointing the fact that comparatively to other European countries, it kept a strong democratic trajectory during the 20th Century, often doing better than its neighbors. Damn, it was the only country in the world resisting the Axis countries during 2 years
I’m not sure how being occupied by Soviets really counts as being the bad guy, tbh.
Talking about governmenst. Surely you’ve heard about East German political police, the crush of Prague’s uprising, the brutal rule of Ceausescu
The fishing thing is a good example of how Brexit was handled. Fishing has been stirred up by the media for decades causing some strong feelings against the French and Europe. While fishing is pretty meaningless for the average person it became important because people who read certain newspapers thought it was important. That, to me, seems like the backbone of Brexit. Shite from newspapers.
I’m convinced all the talk about fishing was to stir up these feelings in the public and use it to the politicians will. Raising it with the EU was a message to the people that their concerns are being addressed. Illusion of the people having power.
Speaking to people who voted to leave I had answers like fishing given. Other answers were that people didn’t like talking orders from Brussels, that was more common than fishing. Some racist comments (some REALLY racist). And one person claiming after Brexit he will get gold capped milk back (apparently the EU banned his favourite milk, and that alone was worth leaving the EU…). I know a few people who didn’t know what to vote for so went with the “default” to leave. I’m assuming they meant they just followed the crap in the news and didn’t apply proper thought.
This media bollocks is still happening now. I saw the other day an article about being able to buy wine in pints. Sigh.
It really was a shit show and still is!
I was with you till this.
You drop this gem of satire in between your serious post
Compare it to the rest of Europe in the 20th century and it doesn’t look so bad. Pretty much all of continental Europe was under some kind of barbaric dictatorship at one point or another during the 20th century. Only the UK remained a democracy.
Now, before you say anything, I have friends and family in Northern Ireland so don’t for a moment imagine that I am somehow unaware of the UK’s perfidy. The point is just to say that it’s the only major European power to have been a democracy throughout the 20th century.
Yeah, that’s about right. And now the Brits are paying the price.
You mentioned Cameron seeming to be a bit limp in opposing it and actually campaigning on it originally. Some interesting context
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/07/david-cameron-offshore-trusts-eu-tax-crackdown-2013
Thank you for the article. The more I learn about it, the more fucked up it truly is. I had a basic understanding of bad it was from a simple perspective, but the more you learn, the more messed up it becomes. I really hope there is something good to come from how monumentally messed up the situation is.
I’m getting used to GDPR regulations in my line of work I haven’t had to deal with… primarily with how my industry uses AI transcription for media. We have to be very careful with which transcription services that reside outside of the UK are used. so if for example, we use an S3 based transcription service in the cloud that is based in France, we might come into issues, even though they might be GDPR compliant. It’s all a bit of a mess, but once you know what to do it is okay, but to cut through the red tape to get an answer can be laborious because so many people need to agree to the request
That’s just one little thing, out of hundreds of impactful changes because of Brexit. It really was a ballsup
As an aside, the one thing that shocked me the most throughout the runup to the referendum is that everyone involved knew that it would gut the Good Friday Agreement by putting a hard border back into Ireland, but NO ONE talked about it. NO ONE.
Whenever Ireland was brought up during Brexit discussions (rarely) it was dismissed, as rapidly as possible, as one of those things that would be resolved after the passing of the referendum – along with every other reasonable concern that got shoved aside in the run up – and of course never was, along with the rest of the shit they swore they had a plan for and of course did not.
Because they had no answer, not even a hint of a clue. The Troubles simmered for several hundred years, the Good Friday Agreement ended them – and the pro-Brexit crowd literally could not have cared less what Pandora’s box they would be opening in Ireland by putting a hard border back in.
It is ONLY because of the Irish people on both sides of that border, and NOT Westminster, that The Troubles have not begun again. The Irish themselves have kept the post-Brexit peace in spite of Brexit, with zero shits given by the pro-Brexit crowd at any point before or after.
edited to add: I know there is a lot more nuance to the GFA than simply a hard border, I am speaking only in terms of how Brexit could easily have brought back hostilities, etc.